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The true story of Sargeant's friendship with a South London teenage gang, and in particular with its leader Tuggy Tug. She first met him while researching a report on why black Caribbean and white working class boys fail, and fears that such young men were responsible for the majority of crime in inner cities. Published to tie in with the first anniversary of the riots.
Synopsis
In 2008 the author - report-writer, "Daily Mail" journalist - befriended a teenage gang in south London while doing research. What began as a conversation outside a chicken take-away shop became a three-year attempt to change their lives, taking her from job centres and the care system to prison and failing schools. This title tells her story.
Book Details
Publisher:
FABER & FABER
Publication Date:
03-Jul-2012
ISBN:
9780571289172
Guardian review
Among the Hoods: Exposing the Truth About Britain's Gangs review
Victoria Segal the guardian Mon 15 April 2013
Harriet Sergeant isn't the obvious candidate to write a sympathetic book about gangs in south London. A Daily Mail journalist and writer of reports for a "right of centre" thinktank, she is called out on her "Princess Di background" by her fixer, Swagger, early on in this book. Her interest in a group of criminally minded teenagers she meets outside a fried chicken takeaway is not, however, motivated by the desire to indulge in head-shaking. As her relationship with these "lost boys", failed by schools, parents and the care system, deepens, so does her rage and empathy. For all the detail of prisons and hostels, there is a sentimental streak running through the book. Sergeant compares Tuggy Tug and his compadres with her own privileged teenage son. While the book allows Sergeant to underline some of her most deeply held opinions "If society wants youth to share its beliefs then it has to have the confidence to articulate those values with authority" it also shows how her perceptions slowly shift. But she never makes it all about her: for once, these boys are front and centre.